Men's Tennis Headline

Wednesday November 6, 2013Men's Tennis Wraps Up Fall Season This Weekend at Two Events

The
Florida men’s tennis team will conclude its fall season this weekend, with
individuals competing at two separate tournaments.

The
doubles pair of Elliott Orkin and Gordon Watson will travel to
Flushing, N.Y. to compete in the 2013 USTA/ITA National Indoor Collegiate Championships
beginning on Thursday. Orkin and Watson have compiled a 10-3 doubles record
this fall, reaching the semifinals of the 2013 USTA/ITA Division I Men's
Southeast Regional Championship in October. The duo also reached the
quarterfinals of the SEC Fall Classic and the ITA Men’s All-American
Championships.

Meanwhile,
seniors Florent Diep and Stephane Piro will play both singles and
doubles in the 2013 Dick Vitale Lakewood Ranch Intercollegiate Clay Court
Classic beginning on Friday. Diep has a 9-7 singles record this fall, reaching
the Round of 16 at three different events, while Piro is 6-5 and played in the
Main Draw at the prestigious ITA Men’s All-American Championships. The pair
have not played together in doubles since arriving at Florida.

Results
from both tournaments will be posted on GatorZone at the conclusion of each
day’s action. Results will also be posted via Twitter (@GatorZoneTennis).

From the Coach – head coach bryan shelton

On
Elliott Orkin and Gordon Watson playing in New York:

“I
think they’ve had a great fall. They’re shooting for a title. We’d like to see
them go up there and really implement the things that they’ve been working on.
They’ve spent a lot of time working on their doubles. Gordon is a natural
doubles player, he’s played a lot of doubles throughout probably the last eight
years and had a lot of success there. Elliott has worked his tail off,
especially throughout the last several weeks on developing his doubles skills
and I think he’s more confident on what he can do. Together as a team they
combine well together and that’s always important in doubles for you to
complement your partner. They do that well. For them going up to New York,
they’re going up there to try and win the national title. You only get a few
opportunities throughout the year to do that – the All-American tournament in
Tulsa, this national tournament and the NCAA tournament individual portion in
May. You’ve got three opportunities to try and win a national title in doubles.
I know they want to take full advantage of this opportunity and go up there and
get it done.”

On
the doubles pairings for the team moving forward:

“We’re
still looking at some combinations. Elliott and Gordon seem to be one that
certainly fits well together and they’ve been consistent. That’s what we look
for. We don’t just look for one result. We’re looking for guys to have multiple
results, whether it’s singles or doubles. Anyone can have one great tournament
or one great result. In the spring, we’ve got to be consistent over a four or
five month period from January through May. We’re looking at guys that can
consistently get it done out there on the court together, or individually in
singles. We’re still tinkering a little bit but I think we’ve got some good
information by mixing up some of the teams this fall.”

On
Florent Diep and Stephane Piro playing doubles together for the first time:

“It’s
one of those things that you don’t know until you try. We’ve never tried to put
Flo and Steph together. Obviously they can speak in French while they’re out
there on the court and nobody knows what they’re talking about. That could be
effective for those two. They know each other so well. They’re good friends,
they live together. So we’ll see. I thought that Mike Alford and Steph combined
extremely well in the last tournament. We got good reports about what they did
together as a team. Maxx Lipman and Steph had a really good tournament in
Nashville where they played together. We’ve got a couple things that we can
look at with the doubles pairs and seeing Flo and Steph and what they do in
this tournament will give us a little bit more information.”

On
Diep and Piro in singles play this weekend:

“I
would like for those guys to have a good result there. I really don’t feel like
either one of them have had outstanding results this fall. Steph has beaten
some very good players at the All-American, he had a few wins in the
consolation over some good players. Other than that, he hasn’t really been
super impressive and he hasn’t played his very best tennis. I’m looking for him
to go down there this weekend and really put an exclamation point on his fall
and really finish with a solid result. The same for Flo. He won the regional
tournament last fall and played extremely well and it’s been a little bit up
and down since. The only thing that he’s lacking is a little bit of confidence.
I’d like to see him go down there and have some good results so he can bolster
his confidence and see how effective he is as a tennis player. He’s got all the
tools, so it’s a matter of him putting it together and being confident in what
he’s doing out there.”